Local 92 Bargaining Update

The October 2, 2013 joint communication from Dalhousie and NSGEU on Local 92 bargaining resulted in further questions from the membership about the status of bargaining, the process of bargaining, and the list of agreed items listed in the email.

The negotiating process for Local 92 is quite extensive. The goal of the exercise is that Local 92 members, depending on their classification, would be covered by the existing Local 77 and Local 99 agreements with specific provisions included as an Appendix or Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) to those agreements.

This requires union and employer bargaining committees to review all the articles in the Local 92, Local 77, and Local 99 collective agreements to determine similarities and differences. They will then determine if the Local 77 and Local 99 articles are acceptable as they are or if they should be modified.

The tables, sent to you last week by Dalhousie, are the relevant articles in the Local 77 and Local 99 agreements that are acceptable to the Local 92 bargaining committee to be applicable to Local 92 members. For example, the bargaining committee has agreed that both Article 33 of Local 99 and Article 42 of Local 77 are acceptable to apply to Local 92.

You will find the articles listed in the tables in the collective agreements of Local 77, Local 92, and Local 99. You can view these collective agreements at nsgeu.ca by selecting “Member Information” then “Locals and Collective Agreements”, followed by “Education” and then “Post-Secondary Education”. Your bargaining committee is not planning to divulge specifics at this time other than what is provided in the table.

Should the union and the employer not be able to reach a tentative agreement, we may obtain third party assistance or the assistance of the Labour Board in determining the appropriate bargaining unit structure and possibly assisting the parties to reach a tentative agreement.

The “agreed items to date” are tentatively agreed and subject to reaching a tentative agreement. Should a tentative agreement be reached, you will have the opportunity to vote on whether or not to accept the tentative agreement. At that time, details of the agreement will be provided, information meetings will be scheduled, and voting by secret ballot will be conducted.

We hope this update answers some of your questions and concerns. Your bargaining committee thanks you for your support. Please watch for future updates.